Abstract The Medicinal Chemistry (MedChem) Core has been formed to address the urgent need for novel antibacterial agents. The MedChem Core will work seamlessly with the Project Teams and other Cores to drive the time- and cost-efficient discovery and development of novel lead compounds to target high-threat bacterial infections. Critical to its mission are its competencies in industrial and academic medicinal chemistry, cheminformatics, and structural biology, which are complemented by decades of experiences with the fundamental biology of the relevant bacterial agents. The MedChem Core will aid in the confirmation of hits discovered through computation or experimental screens, evolve these to early and then optimized leads following a defined workflow with quantitative metrics for molecules at each stage in the process. The MedChem Core will collaborate on projects focused on the discovery and development of A) phloroglucinol and myxopyronin antibacterials, B) rifamycin and oxazolidinone agents against Mycobacterium abscessus, C) antituberculars targeting cell wall biosynthesis or respiration, D) antibiotics suggested by mining of biosynthetic gene clusters, and E) bacterial cell envelope biogenesis inhibitors to prevent Gram-negative multi-drug resistant infections.